Customer Reviews

Fast Sailing Ships: Their Design and Construction, 1775-1875

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I first opened this book, I thought "oh no, more plans" as there are surely a hundred hull lines plans and sail plans mostly focusing on large merchant sailing ships. However as I continued to read I actually found myself more and more involved in the story of the development of fast sailing ships in Great Britain. This thing that McGregor does well here is to tie together real stories of real people based on deep primary research with the story of evolving naval architecture and construction techniques. He does not fail to point out the critical questions of legal regulation defining what size a ship was, the impact of Lloyd's insurance ratings, and the economic situation and relative profitability of various performance characteristics. Showing these relationships by numerous real examples is one of the strengths of this work. There is good coverage of the difference between wooden and iron construction of long, narrow, fine lined sailing ships (more or less the definition of "clipper"). There is a good balance of attention paid to hull form, which defines cargo capacity and water resistance, and the attention paid to sail layout, rigging and handling which supplies the power source. Particular praise must be granted to the extensive reproduction of contemporary paintings and photographs as well as a few modern perspective drawings based on the hull, deck and sail plans found.

This work is very detailed and essentially a scholarly work rather than one readily digestible by a casually interested layperson. The author is clearly conversant with the naval architecture of the period, so much so that little explanation is given to statements like "An indication of high potential speed is the fact that the quarter-beam buttock crosses the load line aft in a straight line." The author also assumes a general knowledge of the ocean going commerce in the 19th century. For example he appears to assume you will know the differences in scale between the American Gold Rush, the Australian Gold Rush and the China Tea trade.

I always seem to be criticizing authors for what they do not do but in this case a short appendix chapter outlining the current perspective of modern hydrodynamics on sailing ship hull form would have been of significant value. This is the kind of thing D. K. Brown does so well in his histories of warhships.

All in all, a fine book for the serious student. It might be helpful if the title made clear this is all about British sailing ships as McGregor makes clear that little work is needed on American sailing ships following the efforts of Howard I Chapelle. Indeed this book can be seen as a complement to those and by no means an inferior one.

This book is a great reference for the modeler that is interested in Clipper ships. It contains a wealth of information I had been unable to find before. Many fold out plan pages and pictures. A highly recommended read.